Braiding machines have long been used in industry, for example, to braid metallic wire into electrical or electronic cable as a protective armor or into hydraulic hose and cordage as a load bearing structure or into rope, either metal or non-metallic.
One of such braiding machines has been known as a maypole type machine wherein the carriers for the bobbins are moved by horn gears or notched rotors on a deck with all of the carriers following alternating circular or arcuate paths around the braiding point. Half the carriers travel in one direction around the braiding point following one alternating path while the other half of the carriers travel in the opposite direction around the braiding point following another alternating path which crosses the first path at each alternating direction. As the two sets of carriers travel in opposite directions around the braiding point each crossing the path of the other, the strands leaving the bobbins are interwoven as they converge to the braiding point.
With such maypole type braiders, the maximum speed of rotation is severely limited by the need to continuously and repetitively change the path of movement of the carriers and the bobbins thereon. The inertia forces of the combined mass of the carriers and the bobbins, particularly when the strands are metal, is considerable and the vibration and wear caused by changing the direction of movement thereof is a severe limitation on the maximum speed of braiding. In the alternative, the bobbins can be made quite small but in such instances the length of the strands on each carrier is severely limited making it necessary to frequently stop the operation of the machine to replenish the machine with newly filled bobbins.
Another type of braiding machine is known as a rotary braiding machine. In these machines, there is a set of inner carriers, a set of outer carriers and a set of strand deflectors located between the inner and outer carriers. The inner and outer carriers follow a circular path about the braiding point in opposite directions. The deflectors stand in the pathway of the strands from the outside carriers. These deflectors cause the strands from the outer carrier to cross the path of the inner carrier thus interweaving the strands. The interwoven strands then converge to the braiding point to form the braid. The forces on these deflectors are quite high and many strand materials have such resistance to sliding that they cannot be braided on this type machine.
Braiding machines which combine the characteristics of the above two are also known, one being termed a lever arm machine and the other a wheel type machine. The lever arm machine is similar to the rotary machine except that instead of strand deflectors, the strands from the outer carriers are entrained by lever arms. The lever arms are controlled by a cam track which moves the strands of the outer carriers across the paths of the inner carriers.
In the wheel type machine, which is also similar to the rotary machine, the strand material from each outer carrier is entrained by a wheel. The strand material enters the wheel at the center and emerges at some radial distance from the center. The rotation of the wheel moves the strand materials across the pathway of the inner carrier. With such a machine, obtaining a symmetrical braid has been difficult.
All of such machines have had difficulty handling various types of material. For example, a machine designed for fabric materials will not handle metallic material. Another problem has been that the length of strand on each bobbin is somewhat limited making it necessary to close the machine down frequently to replenish its bobbins.